“But I never wanted him to…”

“I know. He knows, too. He wanted to learn everything in a hurry. He learned, alright. If you ever have trouble with an armored rover or your particle cannon, he’ll fix it for you.” Wilmos dragged his hand across his face. “Once he got to Nexus, biology took over. He was designed to withstand the siege and protect civilians. That idiot Nuan Cee loaded Nexus with exiles. There are whole families there, hiding out in the colony bunkers. Sean couldn’t walk away from them. Biological programming isn’t everything, but you can’t discount it either. In this case, his programming aligns with his ethics. That’s a powerful urge.”

“Sean Evans won’t walk away from someone who needs his protection.” I had learned that when our neighbors were attacked.

“Yes,” Wilmos said. “And he proved whatever he set out to prove. He is the best there is. He lasted a year and a half on a planet where seasoned mercenaries died in days. He doesn’t have the manpower to win, but he sure as hell isn’t backing down. He is what we envisioned when we created his parents.”

I exhaled. “He traded a lifetime contract to save me from dying when I was poisoned.”

Wilmos grimaced. “It doesn’t surprise me.”

“It surprised the hell out of me. Wilmos, we spent a week together. One week. We flirted. We kissed once. Where is this… devotion coming from?”

The veteran werewolf studied me for a long moment.

“What?”

“I’m trying to figure out a way to explain it and not screw things up between the two of you. I’ve done enough damage as is.”

“Why don’t you just say it straight?”

Wilmos took a deep breath. “You’re young.” He made some uncomfortable motions with his hands, as if he were trying to juggle something and failing. “Just… try not to take it as a blow to your ego. When the night is long and dark, you picture dawn in your head and you wait for it. It sustains you and gives you hope. In a war you search through your memories and you find that one thing, that anchor that tethers you to home. You are that to him. You are everything that is clean and peaceful and beautiful. You are someone who would cry if she heard he died. Soldiers do this. Sailors and long-range space crews, too. Men, women, doesn’t matter. We all wish for someone at home who might be waiting for us. It’s not always fair to those who stay behind, but that’s the way it is.”

Gorvar rose and trotted over and Wilmos patted the big wolf’s head.

“Sean is no fool. He knows there wasn’t anything solid there, but he thinks there might be if he ever made it off Nexus. He thinks there is a chance. When he fought his way through that dark night, covered in gore and with no end in sight, he thought of you. He thought of coming home and seeing you smile. You are worth living for. You kept him going. He couldn’t let you die, Dina. I knew this was a long shot. I hoped that if worse came to worst, you’d let him down gently, so he had some piece of a heart left. Now it doesn’t matter anymore. He will go to his fate knowing that he kept you out of harm’s way and he will be perfectly content.”

“He won’t be going anywhere. I’m going to save him,” I told him. I would deal with being Sean’s dawn later. Now I had to keep him alive.

“You can’t.” Pain brimmed in Wilmos’ eyes. “The only way to save him is to bring about peace on Nexus. It is impossible. I know the Arbiters are trying, but it can never be. They’ve been enemies for far too long. That’s why the Office of Arbitration gave it to some greenhorn Arbiter nobody ever heard of.”

Nice to know this was George’s first try. I leaned forward. “You said yourself I have stardust on my robe and the Universe in my eyes. I want to save Sean. After I saved him, I’ll decide if I am going to give him a chance or not. Right now that’s still up in the air.”

Wilmos’ eyebrows crept up.

“I’m not an angel who will soothe all his wounds, I’m not his dawn, and I’m not his perfect sweetheart who is waiting for him to come home from the war. He’ll figure it out very quickly, if he doesn’t know that already, and then he will have to decide if he wants to let go of that and work on getting to know the real me. But none of this can happen until I pry him out of the Merchants’ contract. Are you going to help me or not?”

Wilmos stared at me for a long time. “What do you need?”

I passed him a piece of paper. “There are many bounties on this person.”

Wilmos glanced at the name and raised his eyebrows. “Yes.”

“I need to know if any of those contracts came off the market after 2032 Standard.”

“I can check that.”

“And I need the psy-booster.”

Wilmos leaned back. “The psy-booster has to be fed with life energy.”

“I know.”

“It’s agony. One of the worst pains known to a human.”

“I know.”

Wilmos thought it over. “Okay. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

So did I.

After the heat of Baha-char, the cool interior of the inn was more than welcome. And I could finally stop rolling the bag. The psy-booster wasn’t something I wanted close to my skin, so Wilmos’ dealer had packed it into a large wheeled bag. The bag was cumbersome and made for an easy target. I had dragged it through a mile worth of Baha-char streets, worrying that some enterprising thief was going to make a play for it. But I was finally home. I strolled through the hallway, with the bag rolling behind me, and opened a screen to George. “Meet me in the Grand Ballroom.”